if he did,' answered
Lesbia, coldly. 'You know how angry he has made grandmother.'

'Because he keeps race-horses which have an unlucky knack of losing,'
said Mary, dubiously. 'I suppose if his horses won, grandmother would
rather approve?'

'Not at all. That would make hardly any difference, except that he would
not ruin himself quite so quickly. Grandmother says that a young man
who goes on the turf is sure to be ruined sooner or later. And then
Maulevrier's habits are altogether wild and foolish. It is very hard
upon grandmother, who has such noble ambition for all of us.'

'Not for me,' answered Mary smiling. 'Her views about me are very
humble. She considers that I shall be most fortunate if a doctor or a
lawyer condescend to like me well enough to make me an offer. He might
make me the offer without liking me, for the sake of hearing himself and
his wife announced as Mr. and Lady Mary Snooks at dinner parties. That
would be too horrid! But I daresay such things have happened.'

'Don't talk nonsense, Mary,' said Lesbia, loftily. 'There is no reason
why you should not make a really good marriage, if you follow
grandmother's advice and don't affect eccentricity.'

'I don't affect eccentricity, but I'm afraid I really am eccentric,'
murmured Mary, meekly, 'for I like so many things I ought not to like,
and detest so many things which I ought to admire.'

'I daresay you will have tamed down a little before you are presented,'
said Lesbia, carelessly.

She could not even affect a profound interest in anyone but herself. She
had a narrowness of mental vision which prevented her looking beyond the
limited circle of her own pleasures, her own desires, her own dreams and
hopes. She was one of those strictly correct young women who was not
likely to do much harm in the world but who was just as unlikely to do
any good. Mary sighed, and went back to her book, a bulky volume of
travels, and tried to lose herself in the sandy wastes of Africa, and to
be deeply interested in the sources of the Congo, not, in her heart of
hearts, caring a straw whether that far-away river comes from the
mountains of the moon, or from the moon itself. To-day she could not pin
her mind to pages which might have interested her at another time. Her
thoughts were with Lord Maulevrier, that fondly-loved only brother, just
seven years her senior, who had taken to race-horses and bad ways, and
seemed to be trying his hardest to dissipate the sple